She paused for effect as she glanced around the room. “But this time, I don’t want to try and work with one hundred charities. I just want to work with one. West Texas Warrior Assistance. If Garrett is going to be the medical director, we need to support him.”
No problem there, Hope noted. Garrett’s siblings were completely behind the idea.
“Let’s vote on it,” Sage enthused. “All in favor of hiring Hope, say aye.”
A chorus of “Ayes!” came from around the table.
“And focusing the foundation on West Texas Warrior Assistance?”
Once again, the support was unanimous.
Sage made a note in the meeting minutes.
Hope cleared her throat. When she had everyone’s attention, she asked, “Shouldn’t you ask me if I want the job?”
“Ah, not just yet.” Sage turned back to her mother. “Obviously, Mom, you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
Lucille smiled. “I have. And for the record, I also want to install Adelaide, since she was instrumental in helping us uncover the fraud, as our new chief financial officer.”
Wyatt frowned the way he always did when his former girlfriend’s name came up. “We definitely need to talk about that.”
Lucille leveled a look right back at Wyatt. “Oh, we will,” she promised.
Garrett shook his head as if that would clear it. “Mom, what’s gotten into you? You used to be so...restrained!”
“The last few weeks made me think about all the problems I couldn’t solve, as well as the ones that we could, if we had just not swept problems under the rug and instead confronted them directly. And that brings me to my next agenda item.” Lucille referred to her tablet. “Garrett, you’ve said you’re willing to be CEO. Can you start immediately?”
He nodded, obviously willing to do whatever it took to allow his mother to concentrate on regaining her good health.
Lucille smiled her approval. “Everyone want to vote on the last two items?”
And with a quick vote the family gave its approval.
“Great.” Lucille grinned at the four children gathered around her. “Now, what are we going to do about having Garrett, the new CEO, in Laramie, and Hope in Dallas? Hope, are you—and Max—willing to relocate? As soon as it’s convenient, of course.”
The matriarch of the family was definitely a steamroller. And she had just run roughshod over Hope. With all good intentions, certainly, but Hope still felt shell-shocked and uncertain.
Knowing she had to get her life problems figured out and solved on her own, Hope ignored the intentions and focused on the assessing way Garrett was looking at her. She lifted her chin. “Lucille, I appreciate your confidence in me, but I haven’t even said I’d take the job yet.”
“If we meet all your demands—salary, living arrangements, work hours, responsibilities and so forth—would you?”
Hope looked at Garrett, still having no clue as to how he felt about all this. And that was the sticking point—not where she lived, or how much she made, or even how many job responsibilities she would have. She wanted to know what he felt. That he wanted to work side by side with her. Because if that wasn’t the case...and the maddeningly inscrutable look on his face said maybe it wasn’t...then any further discussion was pointless.
She’d grown up feeling in the way. She wasn’t going to do it again.
“I don’t know what I’d do. All I know is that I can’t give you an answer today, not like this.”
For a second, disappointment reigned.
Hope realized she hadn’t been the only one secretly wishing she could be a permanent part of all this...
Sage looked at Garrett with a mixture of starry-eyed envy and approval. “Maybe it would help if you came clean.” She prodded her eldest brother in the unabashedly romantic direction she wanted him to go. “Told everyone the two of you are...um...”
Lucille put in hopefully, “Serious about each other...? Engaged?”
It was all Hope could do not to groan. If Garrett’s mother only knew how far from any kind of commitment, never mind any lasting future, she and Garrett were...
Lucille would be so disappointed.
As disappointed as Hope suddenly felt.
What happened in the darkness of his bedroom was one thing, to have it scrutinized in the glaring light of day, with the people who meant most to him gathered around, was another.
Garrett looked at Hope as if trying to read her mind. This time, she gave him nothing of what she was feeling, putting him on the hot seat, too, right along with her.
“No,” he said finally. “It’s too soon for that.”
Lucille harrumphed, her disapproval as sharp as the glare she gave her son. “But not too soon to sleep with each other.”
A collective gasp was followed by a beat of silence.
Ignoring Garrett’s dark scowl, Lucille turned and focused on the blush blooming in Hope’s cheeks. “I know two well-loved people when I see them.”
Funny, Hope thought. Until now, she’d felt that way. She looked into his eyes and saw regret, and wondered if it was as painful as the remorse filling her heart. But there was no clue in the watchful silence of the room.
Garrett swung back to the members of the board, squared his shoulders and tried again. “I get that you’re trying to help, Mom, but what Hope and I have shared is not up for family discussion. Nor is any aspect of her life or mine. I thought I had made that abundantly clear.”
Suddenly, Hope didn’t want their relationship to be something that could not be acknowledged or talked about. Even, or especially, to his family. To her surprise, she wanted one heck of a lot more. And she wanted it right now. Because if he didn’t feel what she did, if he didn’t even come close, then Lucille’s unspoken accusation was right. What were they doing?
And to think she’d been worried about a succession of nannies! This was so much worse for her baby boy than that! Max deserved stability, and it was up to her to give it to him. He could not be expected to love and depend on Garrett, only to have the only father he had ever known walk away without warning. She and Garrett both had career decisions that needed to be made.
She’d been thinking he would factor into hers. Just as she had hoped she was factoring into his.
Had she been wrong? About that, how he felt, how he might ever feel?
Hope pushed back her chair and stood. Hands on the table in front of her, chin high, she asked, “Then how would you define it, if we’re not engaged—” and apparently not headed that way, judging by his continued stony reaction “—and not an item?”
Garrett shoved back his chair and moved effortlessly to his feet, too. They stared at each other across the wide plank table.
Aware the foundation board meeting had devolved into something else entirely, yet needing her questions answered, Hope put her usual decorum aside and pressed on without shame or discretion. “I mean if it’s only a fling and you’re okay with that...” And she wasn’t, she realized far too late, not at all! “Shouldn’t you be able to own up to that?” She gestured at their audience. “I mean we’re all adults here. Right?”
An even tenser silence fell.
Lucille stared at her son, waited.
“Ah. Maybe we should call an end to the board meeting and leave.” Sage scrambled to her feet.
“Or better yet, maybe we should get out the popcorn.” With an ornery grin, Wyatt stayed put.
Chance rocked back in his seat, arms folded in front of him. “I’d like to hear this, too,” Chance said. “Might learn something. About what not to do, obviously.”
“It’s private.” Garrett pushed the words through clenched teeth.
Hope’s heart pounded as if she’d run a marathon, even as her spirits sank. She held Garrett’s gaze, ready to put it all
on the line for the very first time in her life. If only he would dare to do so, too.
But that, she could tell, would only happen if she forced him.
Fighting through her disappointment, she pushed on like a reporter in a hostile press conference, “Private as in doesn’t exist?”
He gave her no reaction.
Fighting tears, Hope offered another choice. “Never happened? Never should have happened?”
Because ethically, morally, she knew the answer to that even if he hadn’t hired her and couldn’t fire her.
Oh, heavens above, what a mess they had made.
* * *
WHAT DID HOPE want from him? Garrett wondered, grinding his jaw in frustration. Without warning, he felt as if he’d been propelled back to his childhood. Filled with all those unspoken and implied expectations he couldn’t figure out, never mind meet. When he’d unfortunately blurted out whatever came to mind and gotten himself in even more trouble. Every time.
Determined not to do this, and certainly not in front of his whole family, he stood there, silent, just waiting, just looking at Hope. Waiting for her to give him a clue as to what would fix this. Not just with his family, who were more confused than he was, but with the two of them.
Usually, she was pretty good about doing that.
Not today.
And after the way they’d made love the night before? All night long? What was going on with her, with them? How had he managed once again to end up so completely blindsided and confused?
Giving her one more chance to fully illuminate this matter before he hauled her off to continue this discussion in private, Garrett finally asked with forced calm, “What do you want this to be?”
Another sad silence fell.
Hope, looking more disillusioned and disappointed than he ever could have imagined her, simply shook her head. She looked him right in the eye, long and hard, and said, “Not. This.”
Chapter Fifteen
Two days later, Lucille Lockhart stood in the bathroom of the former rental home and gaped at her eldest son. She was recovering nicely from her bout of exhaustion, getting stronger and healthier every day.
Garrett felt his own life going in reverse.
“You were serious about cleaning the bathrooms yourself.”
Garrett dropped his scrub brush into the bucket, stripped off his gloves and stepped back. The entire upstairs of the Victorian house reeked of hospital-grade disinfectant. But the hours he’d spent working out his aggression had left it sparkling clean from top to bottom.
Thanks to the help he had received at the local hardware store, he also knew a lot more about home maintenance than he ever had before.
Had Hope elected to stick around, that skill might have come in handy. Since she hadn’t...
He gathered up the rest of his gear, headed downstairs. “Why would you think I wasn’t serious?” About becoming more family oriented? Learning skills that would help with that—in a very practical way? Settling down?
“Maybe you had better things to do with your time?”
He slid his mother a glance. “Like what?”
“Speaking to Hope?”
If he’d thought it would do any good, he would have. “She made it pretty clear when she left the Circle H she had nothing more to say to me.”
“And you’re content to leave it at that?”
No, but it was what he had to do, needed to do, to come out of this relationship with even a shred of dignity. Hope had been honest with him from the first. Told him her life was too chaotic and full, as it was. That she had her son, who was all she needed. That even if she wanted to embark on a relationship with him, which she clearly hadn’t, she wouldn’t have the time or the energy to be able to do so.
He should have listened to her, instead of seducing her into what was to be a strictly physical relationship with a firm expiration date.
He had agreed with her stipulations because he had thought, deep down, that he would be able to change her mind. That, as time wore on and they got closer—and they had gotten closer—she would come to want the same things he did.
Only she hadn’t.
And he had to live with his crushed expectations, hopes and dreams. Because it was his fault he hadn’t listened to her at the outset.
Garrett crossed over to the cooler and pulled out a couple of icy-cold flavored waters. He wiped off the dampness with a paper towel and handed his mom one. “Hope and I had an agreement, Mom. What we had was going to be a short-term thing, and that was it.”
Lucille took a small, dainty sip. “You don’t think she changed her mind?”
He had a flash of the soft, sweet way Hope gazed up at him when they made love, and the fiercely determined way she had looked as she had left the Circle H to return to her life in Dallas. He knew his mother was invested in this, rightly or wrongly. She had tried to help them find a happy-ever-after, and even if her ploy hadn’t worked she deserved credit for trying.
Garrett downed half the bottle in a single gulp. The hot persistent ache in his throat only grew. He shrugged. “She never said so if she did.”
His mother edged closer. She studied him with an eagle eye, before asking the kind of question she would have been too refined to have voiced before. “Did you change yours?”
The ever-present heaviness inside his heart remained. What did it matter? “It takes two equally committed people to make a successful relationship, Mom. You and Dad taught me that.” It was what he wanted, what he had to have.
Lucille gazed at him thoughtfully, looking glad that at least one of her life lessons had sunk in. “Hope turned down the job at the foundation. Not because it wasn’t challenging enough or would require her to relocate to Laramie, Texas. She turned it down because of you, Garrett.”
Was he that much of a pariah? Did she still feel he had treated her poorly? Garrett clenched his teeth. “She didn’t want to work with me?”
“She said she couldn’t bear to be that close to you.”
He stared at his mother like a shell-shocked idiot. “Hope actually said that?”
His mother propped her hands on her hips. “While she was crying her eyes out.”
He took a moment to consider that. It was both the saddest thing and the best thing he had ever heard. Finally he found his voice, demanded thickly, “Hope cried over me?”
Lucille scoffed, as if she couldn’t believe how oblivious he was. “You broke her heart!”
The accusation stung. And more, was completely unfounded. What had he done, after all, but offer Hope everything of value he had to give? All within the parameters she had set. “She decimated mine!”
Lucille leaned closer. “So tell her.”
If he hadn’t already been turned inside out, he would have. But he had, so...
Forcing himself to be realistic in a way he hadn’t been before, Garrett shook his head. A reconciliation wasn’t in the script Hope had laid out for them. And she was a woman who always stuck to the plan, never more so than when times got stressful. It was the only way to survive and come out unscathed, she had said.
Garrett winced. “She’d never believe me.”
His mother encouraged him kindly. “Then it’s up to you to tell her what’s really in your heart and change that, isn’t it?”
* * *
ON SATURDAY, HOPE left Max at home with a sitter and walked into the Lockhart Foundation for the last time. Lucille had asked her to pack up her personal belongings in advance of the mover’s arrival.
Hope had readily agreed. Not only was it a way to help the still physically rebounding former CEO, but a way to give herself desperately needed closure, too.
As promised, Sharla, Lucille’s soon-to-be-ex assistant, greeted Hope at the door.
Like Hope, sh
e was in casual clothing, suitable for packing and moving.
They chatted for a moment, about who was tasked with packing up what and how, and Sharla’s need to leave shortly to pick up her daughter after her ballet class.
Sharla led Hope over to the unassembled book boxes, markers, tape and scissors. While the two worked to put some boxes together, Sharla chatted. “I saw the video you posted on all the social media websites. You did a great job giving the history of the foundation and really introducing the entire family. I especially liked the way you portrayed Garrett. Sometimes he comes off as grumpy rather than heroic, but you caught his true essence.”
Maybe because I know who he is, deep down. One of the kindest, strongest, most gallant men on Earth.
“Thanks.”
“I was surprised you didn’t take the public relations job for the foundation. Things had been going so well, from the sound of it.”
They had been, for a while, anyway, Hope thought. In fact, she easily could have imagined herself becoming an integral part of the family charity.
Sharla chatted casually. “Is it because, like me, you didn’t want to move to West Texas?”
“I just wasn’t sure it was a good fit.” With me crazy in love with Garrett, and him feeling, I don’t know exactly what, about me...
Hope held a box closed while Sharla taped it shut. “What about you? Lucille told me you have a fantastic new job.”
Nodding, Sharla grinned. “I start Monday. I’ve got a bump up in salary and responsibility, and a much shorter commute. Lucille really pulled out all the stops to make sure I wouldn’t spend any time unemployed.”
“Sounds like her,” Hope said fondly.
“I know. All the Lockharts have huge hearts.”
Even more importantly, the Lockharts had shown her what it was like to have a loving, supportive family surrounding you. They’d made her realize what she wanted in her own life—a love that would last, a daddy for Max, a family like theirs. Moreover, they’d helped her see that, in insisting on forging on alone, she was settling for far less than what either she or Max deserved.
A Texas Soldier's Family Page 18